Brass Band

Being a brilliant musician would be like reaching the pinnacle of my personality-mountain. I would exist freely in my boundless artistic expression and live a bohemian, fast-paced, free-love existence. I started playing the trumpet a couple of years ago and I haven’t even got past the foothills yet. This is mostly down to my total lack of dedication.  I decided to join a brass band. Like a Sherpa taking me further up the mountain, I thought it would force me to play at least once a week and maybe even shame me in to practising. I went to try out for the City of Birmingham Brass Band.

The rehearsal was due to start at 7.30. I arrived at 7.32 and they had already started. A conductor who begins a rehearsal bang on time values punctuality. Not a good start. I decided to wait and just have a listen to the kind of music they were playing until the half-time break when I could make my entrance. After about ten minutes sat on a chair outside, a man with a trombone rushed past me: another latecomer. He looked at me a little confused and asked what I was doing. He explained that there was no break and ushered me in to the hall announcing, “This is Amelia. I found her outside”, before leaving me hanging in the awkward silence as he went to take his seat.

Three members of the band had to get up to go and get my cornet, an extra chair and a music stand. Then everyone else had to move to make room. The conductor looked at me with a bemused expression and asked, “So, where do we put you then?” In a panic of self-deprecation I said, “Just put me with the worst one.” Everyone laughed and he replied, “That’s not how we tend to put it. I’ll sit you with Elly tonight – no offence Elly.” Great! Not only had I fully disrupted the whole rehearsal but I managed to insult a band member and humiliate myself in the process. It’s amazing what you can achieve in ten seconds.

I’ve had my ups and downs in band. Downs would include spending a day in the pissing rain playing to a handful of patriotic toffs for some half-drowned jubilee celebrations and being humiliated at rehearsals when the conductor asks me to play by myself (just in case the others were in any doubt that I’m incompetent). Ups would include playing in an area contest (serious business in the brass band world), playing at Stratford-upon-Avon bandstand for another bunch of patriotic fruit-loops (in the sunshine this time) and making a new friend in 3^rd cornets.

Did a brass band change my life?

Two rehearsals a week certainly has changed my life. A significant portion of my leisure time is now spent perpetually under-achieving at the same thing.  If I abandonned everything else and just concentrated on playing in the band and practising my trumpet outside of rehearsals, I could actually be quite good (I can tell because I’m surviving without putting any effort in at all right now). I am, sadly, unable to focus on one thing – all part of my desperate and flailing attempts to find meaning and fulfilment.
I get glimmers from it though. When I manage to play something well or we give a good performance, I get a real buzz from it.

Rating: 6/10

Comments: There is no short cut to musical genius. Being in a brass band is fun (sometimes) and hard work (most of the time) but can’t pull me up the mountain without me putting more time and effort in (more than 2 nights a week?!?). Unbelievable!

Development Opportunities: Apply myself? Not likely.

Become an experimental jazz trumpeter…you can play whatever you like and say it’s ‘art’.